Fans, Former Owner Fight to Keep Sonics in Seattle

There are flickers of hoops hope in Seattle. On Sunday, in the Sonics’ last home game this season and perhaps in franchise history, the young club upset the Dallas Mavericks, 99-95. And on Monday, former club owner Howard Schultz, better known as Starbucks’ chairman and chief executive, said he was prepared to sue to get the team back from an ownership group that plans to move Kevin Durant and Co. to Oklahoma City.

Sonics fans hoped for a reprieve at the home finale. (Reuters Photo)

A week ago, Mr. Schultz begged off questions about the Sonics at a press event for his coffee company, Jayda Evans reports in the Seattle Times. The potential lawsuit, based in part on a Times account of emails by the new owners openly talking about moving the team, despite their agreement to a stipulation when buying the team that they’d try to keep it in place, appears unlikely to succeed, Times columnist Jerry Brewer warns. “Ultimately, this effort only figures to get Schultz a considerable legal-fees tab and a heap of disappointment,” Mr. Brewer writes. “Nevertheless, he has given the city an even stronger case to keep the Sonics in their KeyArena lease through 2010.” (Contrary to what the Fix wrote earlier, Mr. Schultz hasn’t sued yet, but said he’s prepared to do so.)

The team made an emotional case Sunday, but fans responded with more sadness than celebration, Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen writes: “What had been won, really? A victory in their worst season on the court; a meaningless evening amid the bigger scheme.”

Gary Payton, who led the Sonics to the playoffs 10 times in his 13 seasons, was in attendance Sunday. “He signed autographs, posed for pictures and for a few minutes made everyone forget about this miserable season, as if it was 1996 again,” Percy Allen writes in the Times.

Memories of bygone franchises can be painful. On the occasion of the debut of arena football’s Iowa Barnstormers, Part III, Des Moines Register columnist Sean Keeler wonders if fans will risk a third disappointment. Of course, for every jilted city there’s a fan base eager to embrace a new franchise. On the 50th anniversary of the baseball Giants’ West Coast debut, Lewis Abraham Leade recalls in the San Francisco Chronicle how “San Franciscans greeted their Giants with an outpouring of gracious and grateful glee.”

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The NBA playoff slate is set, but the postseason doesn’t begin for four days. So for now, the Fix will stick with other teams that will be watching from home.

The 48-33 Golden State Warriors have won more games than any team in the franchise’s previous 13 seasons — including last year, when the Warriors won 42 regular-season games and added five playoff wins. They’ve also won more games than any non-playoff team in the NBA’s last 25 years. These are small consolations for a Warriors season that flamed out in dramatic and bizarre fashion Monday night, with Baron Davis sitting on the bench during the entire second half of a 122-116 loss to the Phoenix Suns that eliminated Golden State from the playoffs. “In his absence, the Warriors met their season’s end with tributes of all that had gone right, all that had been accomplished and ultimately, all that was not meant to be,” Janny Hu writes in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Like the Warriors, the 40-win Portland Trail Blazers would have made the playoffs had they sported their .500 record in the East. Instead Portland has had several weeks to look ahead to next year, and management started by cutting ties with Darius Miles. The Oregonian’s John Canzano says the disastrous $48 million Miles signing should impart a lesson: “The entire body of an athlete’s work, not just a couple of inspired months at the end of an expiring contract, or promises made in training camp, should be considered when handing out guaranteed contracts.”

In New York, where the Knicks’ coach and former president has made several trades on par with the Miles fiasco, New York Times beat reporter Howard Beck makes good use of what may be one of his last opportunities to kick Isiah Thomas around. “The Knicks thanked their fans — their irrationally loyal, perpetually tormented fans — with free hot dogs, popcorn, pizza and pretzels Monday at Madison Square Garden,” Mr. Beck writes. “They called it fan appreciation night, although the fans surely would have traded the food for a higher-ticket item, namely the termination of Isiah Thomas.”

The Miami Heat have nine fewer wins than the Knicks, yet among moribund South Florida pro teams, they may have the best chance to turn things around quickly, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Dave Hyde writes (clearly not putting much stock in the Marlins’ 7-5 start).

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Detroit sports teams giveth, Detroit sports teams taketh away. Right around the time the preseason favorite Detroit Tigers showed some life at home by coming back to beat the Minnesota Twins, 11-9, and improve to a majors-worst 3-10, the Red Wings were blowing a 3-2 lead in the third game of their NHL first-round playoff series in Nashville. The lead vanished in nine of the game’s final 240 seconds as the Predators scored two goals and went on to win, 3-2, and narrow Detroit’s series lead to 2-1.

“The Wings do not sound terribly worried, but they are concerned about at least one thing,” Michael Rosenberg writes in the Detroit Free Press. “Earlier in the game, Nashville scored two goals barely two minutes apart. In Saturday’s game, the Predators scored two goals 11 seconds apart. Astute readers will notice a trend here.”

The Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t falter in their bid to take a 3-0 series lead over the Ottawa Senators. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ron Cook credits 23-year-old goalie Marc-André Fleury. “Much was made before the series of how much the Penguins have grown and matured since their quick playoff exit against the Senators last spring,” Mr. Cook writes. “It seems obvious now that no one grew and matured more than Fleury.”

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The New York Yankees spent $30,000 to drill for a David Ortiz jersey buried in the cement that will form the foundation for their new stadium. They may spend more money on this story, if they’re serious about suing the Red Sox-loyal construction worker behind the prank. In reacting seriously to this story (which, by the way, graced the cover of the Journal’s corporate cousin, the New York Post, on Friday, Saturday and Monday), the 26-time world champions “have embraced irrational thought as their own, using Derek Jeter’s lighthearted concerns as their alibi, their beacon of reason,” Filip Bondy writes in the New York Daily News. “This supposedly aristocratic, staid franchise has leaped into a realm normally populated by voodoo dolls, séances, astrologers and rabbits’ feet.”

The Yanks might want to take a cue from two columns urging fans of the two-time world champion Chicago Cubs not to get bogged down in irrational thoughts about past failures. Chicago Tribune columnist Fred Mitchell, inspired by Bill Buckner’s Boston homecoming, says Cubs fans should forgive Leon Durham for a costly error in the 1984 NLCS. And Chris De Luca argues in the Chicago Sun-Times that Dusty Baker deserves no blame for the Cubs’ unraveling in the 2003 NLCS. (Mr. Baker does have other baseball transgressions to answer for, however.)

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Tommy Holmes, a beloved All-Star second baseman outfielder for the Boston Braves for 10 years starting in 1942, died Monday at age 91. In addition to a remarkable 1945 season in which he hit safely in 37 straight games, Mr. Holmes left behind a charitable legacy. “He was also instrumental in helping the Braves initiate the Jimmy Fund in 1948,” Marvin Pave writes in the Boston Globe. “He was one of several players, along with manager Billy Southworth, whose visit to a young cancer patient known as ‘Jimmy’ (real name Carl Einar Gustafson) at Children’s Hospital was nationally broadcast on radio. The Braves’ efforts helped raise $200,000 that year.”

– Tip of the Fix cap to readers Michelle Alessandri and Don Hartline for link suggestions, and to Michael McConnell and Ed Onanian for error-spotting.

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Comments (1 of 1)

As a resident of Seattle, I have to say that the fans and Howard Schultz are in serious denial. The team is gone because the government of the city of Seattle and the state of Washington failed to give the Sonics the same sweetheart deal that they gave to the Mariners and the Seahawks. Imagine that!

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